For a long time, Mike Call has been coming up with innovative ways to bring climbing content to the Internet. The first example that I was an avid consumer of was his SmackMag project (Pro Tips, Ben Moon climbing Black Lung and more) sometime around 2000 or 2001. Along with the similar ClimbXMedia site (created by BigUp), SmackMag delivered regularly updated pictures and videos of some of the sport’s best on their latest projects. These sites filled the void of waiting months for the next climbing DVD (or VHS back then) to hit store shelves. They provided a seemingly endless stream of psych for the average climber. Of course it didn’t hurt that both of these sites provided all this great content for free.

Unfortunately, not long after both sites began, they both went away. Constantly creating and gathering new content proved to be too time consuming for the (financial) benefits that running the sites returned to their operators. With this in mind it was with great excitement that I saw that Mike Call was bringing the SmackMag idea back to the web earlier this year with the creation of the Momentum Video Magazine.

The initial version of the Momentum Video Magazine

Much as with the earlier sites, Mike showcased frequently updated content from a number of contributors. This incarnation lasted for 9 months before a new design, and a new concept were introduced. The “new” MomentumVM site now offers two sections of videos. The Free area offers a selection of low resolution content while the new Premium area is a subscription based service that offers a greater variety of videos at a higher resolution. In conjunction with the videos is a new News area that features background information on the videos featured as well as other recent climbing news.

The new Momentum Video Magazine (click for full size)

Recently I decided to check out the Premium Section myself to see what is was all about so I could share with everyone. Click below to read my summary of the costs, the pros and cons of subscribing as well as the current list of videos being offered.

Chuck Fryberger’s video of Rob Pizem’s new alpine route near Mt. Evans, CO. A very well done short that provides high quality footage along with a rather humorous revelation that Pizem’s belay on his redpoint was none other than Paul Robinson.

James Litz doing the FA of Warpath (possible V15) at Castle Rocks, ID. This is the sort of footage that you would normally wait months to see on an upcoming DVD.

Chuck Fryberger’s video of the bouldering in Oman. A very cool, seemingly self shot short, that shows Chuck establishing 4 new problems in a country not many people would think of as a bouldering destination. Part 2 is yet to come.

One reason you wouldn’t subscribe to the Momentum Video Magazine

Cost. It’s as simple as that for most people. Either $9.95 on a monthly basis or a $70 commitment for a whole year is going to be a deciding factor that deters most people from signing up. An informal poll of Climbingnarc.com readers found that ~70% would not be willing to pay to see climbing videos online.

A few issues that bothered me but might not matter to you

Load Times. This might vary from user to user but to me the load times on many of the videos was simply too long for my tastes. I didn’t do any precise timings, however I was noticing load times around 5 minutes which felt too long for videos only a few minutes in length.

Flash based site. This is both a positive and a negative but I will list it here. While the design of the site is very tight and appealing to the eye, in general websites designed entirely in Flash are harder to get around in my opinion. The flash design also makes it impossible to share a specific link to any of the actual videos.

The new MVM has been online for roughly 6 weeks at the time of this posting. Along with the 21 videos that are available for free, the Premium area features all 16 videos below (ALL videos in a higher resolution than the free area)

List of Premium Content available as of 12/18/2007 – I placed a * next to the videos I particularly liked

Overall the content that is offered in the Premium area is pretty good. The fact that Mike draws on a wide range of correspondents with varying levels of experience causes the production quality to vary from video to video, but for the most part they are all well done. The main benefit of this variety in correspondents is that the scope of the content is fairly diverse. Many of the videos in the Premium section were of areas and climbers that I had never really seen much footage about previously so that was a big plus.

To sum it all up, would I pay a monthly fee to watch climbing videos online? The answer is: sometimes. I would be more likely to sign up at a few different points throughout the year as opposed to having a subscription year round. While $70 is not necessarily that much money to pay for a year’s worth of a service, I don’t think that I am alone in that I’m not 100% comfortable spending that much money for online climbing videos. Perhaps this attitude will change over time though.

I have no idea how many subscribers there are or how much money Mike is able to make through advertising on the site. My hope is that this model works out and that he is able to feel fairly compensated for his efforts so that he continues to innovate and create new content. My fear however is that MomemtumVM will go the way of sites like Smackmag and ClimbXMedia that came before it. I think a model based more heavily on advertising revenue and less on subscription fees would increase traffic and might work out better for all parties involved.

Very interesting analysis. This is a great counterpoint to the whole “can climbing magazines survive in the Internet era” debate. Turn it on its head: Can subscription-based websites survive? Many have tried and backed away, including recently the New York Times. So far, it seems, only advertising can provide the necessary support to sustain either print or web publications.

Nice review. I’ll have to give the premium content a try one of these days. I find a lot of the time the free videos don’t play well, which doesn’t exactly make me want to pay money for the other stuff. And as we talked about, unless he is getting a ton of traffic, I can’t imagine this being a very profitable venture at this point. I guess time will tell.

after calling foul on certain purchases of my wife in recent months, she would assuredly stab my face if i told her i subscribed to an internet-based climbing video site.

that said, i fully plan on purchasing the DVDs and i hope the DVD revenue is sufficient to compensate for any shortcommings of the premium subscription idear.

MC: i will subscribe, however, if you do a pro tips with beck on how to bill sufficient hours, not only to appease, but also to get mad bonus cash WHILE ALSO sending mad personal [x>v7] projects. RIDDLE ME THAT !

We will be having the boot of sugar, spice, rainbows, unicorns and teddybears evaluated later today although due to persistent stabbing like feelings in the boot mrs. narc probably doesn’t think too highly of it.

It would seem like a balance between paying for a quarterly DVD and getting online access would be the best bet. Currently $160 for 4 DVDs and 1 year of access seems a bit STEEP. If this were to come down I would definitely think about it more seriously. I guess I will try the premium section soon and see how it goes.

[…] has been kindly donated by the folks at MVM. If you are not familiar with the site, check out my Initial Review as well as my Follow-up post that has an updated list of all the videos you will have access to. […]

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